D&D 5E Enhancing Vecna: Eve of Ruin *SPOILERS*

[Starfox]

you get to explicitly tell one of the setting's greater gods, who actually made a good-sized portion of the multiverse, that there's a dude who's going to destroy literally everything, and her response is basically, "Oh chill. Good luck then, I guess.

"You heroes handle this yourselves despite us having mighty resources" is a common problem in adventurers, no gods required. I particularly remember a Cyberpunk adventure set in Japan that involved some large-scale weapons smuggling and a planned attack on the diet (parliament). Japan is notoriously paranoid about firearms in private hands. We were a group of 5 cops and were not given any support when going into the villains' base.

 

[Distracted DM]

"You heroes handle this yourselves despite us having mighty resources" is a common problem in adventurers, no gods required. I particularly remember a Cyberpunk adventure set in Japan that involved some large-scale weapons smuggling and a planned attack on the diet (parliament). Japan is notoriously paranoid about firearms in private hands. We were a group of 5 cops and were not given any support when going into the villains' base.

The excuse is usually because they have more important things to do.

The king can't spare his elite knights to ride down the villains that are attacking yonder town, because the knights are all that stand between the kingdom and the hordes of undead to the north.

The fixer wants you to handle this job instead of her best team because it's a cheap and dangerous job, but she's doing her client a favor by offering it.

There are few things more important than everything being rewritten to a villains liking, but it's definitely doable to say:

1. "we can't interfere because he's cheating by having proxies do this for him."
2. "The gods that care about this can't interfere because that'd leave them open to the gods that don't care" (although the stakes are so ridiculously high in this one that that's a hard sell unless you align all the foul gods with Vecna).
3. Vecna has blackmail secrets on all the gods so they can't interfere directly. Photos of Orcus" derriere, of Zeus being a wholesome father, etc.
4. Vecna has developed the GodBlind Ultra3000 so the gods can't collectively smite him.

 

[dave2008]

OK, after digging into the adventure a little more I have decided to add Tiamat and Vashishax to my dossier. That is brining it up to 24 pages!

I am adding Tiamat because it makes no sense to me that she wouldn't get more involved if the PCs tell her Vecna's plan (one of the solutions to get part of the Rod in the adventure). So I am providing a way to get her involved in some form.

For Vashishax, I just think that it was a cheap out to say: use the stats for a Kraken from the MM when you have a chance to stat an Abyssal Kraken!

PS - I have the Lolth, Miska, Tiamat, and Vecna sections pretty much done. I still need to finish Iggwilv, Lord Soth, Kas, and Vashishax. This is has expanded beyond my original plans, so it will not likely be ready until next week or the following.

 

[dave2008]

I imagine it has been discussed, but I have missed it, if it has. Eve of Ruin provides options to start the adventure at levels 7, 8, & 9. It then also suggests that it could be years between chapter 1 & 2. I feel that if coupled with "Nest of the Eldritch Eye" pulling chapter 1 off separately would be a nice way to more slowly weave the threat of Vecna into a campaign. The question: what do you run between chapter 1 & 2?

 

[dave2008]

Next idea: I plan to make it less explicit what Vecna's plan is. Alustriel will just know something bad is going to happen, but not what it is. Discovering the truth of Vecna's plan will become a bigger part of how I would run this.

 

[Clint_L]

Anyway, if the gods don’t care, why should the players?

Because maybe it matters more to them? Maybe it'll have a bigger impact on their lives?

This is a lesson that I drill into my creative writing students: for a story to work, the audience just needs to feel why the stakes matter so much to the character.

As an example, we watch the "birthday pool party scene" from the film Eighth Grade. The beginning of that scene is a 13 year old girl alone in a bathroom, trying to screw up her courage to get into her swimsuit and walk out to the pool in front of her peers. By the end of the scene, when she opens the door and walks out, she feels like a goddamn superhero.

In the greater scheme of things, whether or not one kid overcomes her crippling social anxiety for a moment makes basically zero difference. But in this kid's world, it is everything and director Bo Burnham makes the audience feel it. Those are stakes.

I think the biggest mistake made by a lot of entertainment is the notion that making the stakes objectively bigger will make them feel more impactful to the audience. That doesn't work unless we are completely invested in the characters.

That's why MCU movies have gone from "save the love interest" to "save the city" to "save the planet" to "save the universe" to "save the multiverse" and are getting diminishing returns. We don't care unless we care about the people.

So in adapting this adventure, I have to figure out how to make the story matter to the character arcs of the PCs. It needs to matter emotionally for them to care. That's why I'm substantially altering the first episode to build on family drama that relates to the backstory of two characters. I need going after Vecna to feel personal.

 

[Clint_L]

It doesn’t work as a narrative unless you go big.

I could not disagree more. It has to work first and foremost at a character level for us to care about the story at all.

Edit: for example, I just watched Dune 2. I enjoyed the first film; I felt invested in Paul's character and his family. By the end of the second film, I just had a headache. There was huge spectacle and galaxy-spanning conflict, but the stakes had become meaningless. What do I care about a trade dispute and interstellar war if the characters are incomprehensible to me?

Vecna's multiverse plan is incomprehensible to me. Since you alluded to it earlier: yeah, it feels like turning the dial up to 11. The whole point of that joke in Spinal Tap is that it is a meaningless, cosmetic thing to do.

 

[dave2008]

I could not disagree more. It has to work first and foremost at a character level for us to care about the story at all.

Edit: for example, I just watched Dune 2. I enjoyed the first film; I felt invested in Paul's character and his family. By the end of the second film, I just had a headache. There was huge spectacle and galaxy-spanning conflict, but the stakes had become meaningless. What do I care about a trade dispute and interstellar war if the characters are incomprehensible to me?

Vecna's multiverse plan is incomprehensible to me. Since you alluded to it earlier: yeah, it feels like turning the dial up to 11. The whole point of that joke in Spinal Tap is that it is a meaningless, cosmetic thing to do.

I agree with your premise, but disagree with your example. I felt much more connected to Paul and his struggles in Dune 2 than Dune 1. Still the same narrative idea at work though - connection to the character first.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't want to seem like I'm crapping on this adventure. I'm going to be using most of it. I love the concept of a campaign that spans key locations and characters in the history of D&D. The settings and maps look good, even if a few aren't to my taste. I'll be running a lot of it as is. I'm mostly altering plot details to make it fit better with my preferred style and an ongoing campaign. My main enhancements will be focused on the initial chapter, where the kidnapped nobles are going to be linked to the backstory of several characters.

 

[BeachRat88]

Next idea: I plan to make it less explicit what Vecna's plan is. Alustriel will just not something bad is going to happen, but not what it is. Discovering Vecna's what his plan even is will become a bigger part of how I would run this.

That concept for Alustriel is perfect and very in-line with how Mystra often cryptically communicated with her chosen! Love it!